General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Truck Drivers Say They Won't Deliver To Cities with Defunded Police Departments [View all]A HERETIC I AM
(24,365 posts)Not too many. In many firms, large and small, if you gain a reputation for being a pain, for refusing loads to a particular area, etc., The dispatcher can "Starve you out", meaning they will get you a trip across the country from where you live, and then for days and days afterwards, only give you short, crap loads that don't pay or even no loads for a couple days in a row, and make you sit in a truck stop somewhere, hundreds and hundreds of miles away from home without pay. They won't give you a load that takes you back to the house until they feel you have been punished enough.
Now, no trucking company in its right mind would admit that this is an actual practice, but I assure you, it is. It was even worse back before the days of cellphones where you HAD to stay near a payphone and call in every 4 or 6 hours. At least now with cellphones the drivers have a bit more freedom, but increasingly companies are equipping their units with GPS locators, so they can know where you are anyway, and tell you that you have to move to a specific spot because that's near where the loads are (or so they will say).
The vast majority of OTR drivers in this country are paid by the mile, so sitting still means no pay. Leaving a guy at the bottom of the call list for 2 days will certainly get the point across, trust me.
Oh...one more thing;
There is a system called a "DAC Report" which a company can access before hiring and make notations on when a driver leaves. If you leave a firm and they put a bad notation on your report (Refused loads, difficult to work with, etc) it can make getting hired by another firm VERY difficult.
Why truckers aren't calling for a similar system for cops is beyond me! I certainly do.